Boulder's Vertiba acquired by French firm Publicis

Boulder startup Vertiba has been purchased by Publicis.Sapient, a division of French multinational corporation Publicis Groupe (EPA: PUB).

Vertiba builds custom, cloud-based applications for several large public and private sector clients locally, including Boulder County, SolidFire and Google. The company, founded in 2010, is currently working on a social network for University of Colorado faculty and alumni.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jim Hooton, co-founder and managing partner at Vertiba, said the company will stay in Boulder — with plans to grow.

"What we're trying to do is push this to a much larger customer base, and we knew we couldn't do that internally," Hooton said of the acquisition.

Sapient chief strategist Chris Davey said the company was looking for a purchase that brought significant Salesforce expertise to the table.

"(Vertiba) gives us great access to that," Davey said. "And we bring to them large, global clients that are just now investing heavily in moving a lot of their business into the cloud.

"It's a perfect marriage."

The coupling is one of a rash of recent acquisitions of local companies, including the high-profile purchases of SolidFire and Boulder Brands.

"Boulder's acquisition and merger activity is remarkably dynamic for a community of our size," said Clif Harald, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council. "Our startup ecosystem is world famous, so it shouldn't be too surprising that multinational companies like Hain, Medtronic, Google, Amgen — and now Publicis — find exciting businesses to acquire here."

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The multi-million dollar buys of Boulder Brands and SolidFire were preceded and followed by companywide layoffs, but Vertiba partner Ted Battreall said that won't happen in this deal.

"What they are buying is our people," Battreall said. "We're in the services business, so your greatest asset is your people."

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